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Mass No 2 in E minor

Introduction

The Mass No 2 in E minor, with wind accompaniment, was written largely as a sop to the Cecilians, an austere group within the Roman Catholic Church who objected to complexity in liturgical music and deplored the involvement of an orchestra (would they really have accepted the wind instruments?). The work’s concern with slow, floating counterpoint, while referring to Palestrina, yet anticipates the deliberation of Bruckner’s own later processes, and the work conveys a sublimity inaccessible to its companions in D minor and F minor, admirable though they are. This can be felt at once in the opening Kyrie, largely unaccompanied except for the intermittent use of horns and trombones. Long suspensions and clear harmony create a sense of space. In the central section, ‘Christe eleison’, there is more movement and a climax; then the Kyrie returns, this time to make its own climax before fading into vaulted heights.

The Gloria and Credo, on the other hand, are essentially classical allegros, with contrasts of tempo and style dictated by the text. For the most part Bruckner is revelling in the athletic energy familiar from his great predecessors Haydn and Beethoven, but with textures simpler and more spare and rhythms blunter and more naïve. Both movements are in C major and contain central contrasts, the Gloria having a quiet section on ‘qui tollis peccata mundi’ with typical horn phrases, and the Credo a simple but profound treatment of ‘et incarnatus est’ and ‘Crucifixus’, a stream of perfectly formed, dignified melody of great beauty. The Gloria ends with a short but trenchant chromatic fugato on ‘Amen’, and the Credo (whose main theme anticipates strikingly the sturdy power of the scherzo of the eighth symphony of more than twenty years later) reaches its apex in a broad and mighty cadence.

It is in the Sanctus that Palestrina’s influence (in the form of a quotation from the Missa brevis of 1570) is clearest. A two-part canon is enveloped in eight-part counterpoint as a great crescendo is built. The whole movement lasts only a few minutes but has a power of suggestion out of all proportion to its dimensions; such a slow crescendo as this begins some of Bruckner’s greatest symphonic movements, and the tribute to Palestrina is also a glance to the future, not only Bruckner’s own, but also to such things as the magnificent opening pages of Sibelius’s seventh symphony.

The gentle and subtle Benedictus is in full sonata form, its development deeply modulated and its coda a bright burst on ‘Hosanna in excelsis’. The final Agnus Dei delivers the customary threefold prayer, each time as a crescendo, the last quietened to make way for the hushed ‘dona nobis pacem’, perhaps the most beautiful music in the whole work, which is without doubt the deepest and most concentrated of Bruckner’s Masses.

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Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men of good will. We praise you. We bless you. We adore you. We glorify you. We give you thanks for your great glory. Lord God, king of heaven, God the Father almighty, Lord, only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, Lord God, lamb of God, Son of the Father, you who take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us; you who take away the sins of the world, receive our prayer; you who sit at the right hand of the Father, have mercy on us. For you only are holy. You only are Lord. You only are most high, Jesus Christ. With the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father. Amen.

Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men of good will. We praise you. We bless you. We adore you. We glorify you. We give you thanks for your great glory. Lord God, king of heaven, God the Father almighty, Lord, only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, Lord God, lamb of God, Son of the Father, you who take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us; you who take away the sins of the world, receive our prayer; you who sit at the right hand of the Father, have mercy on us. For you only are holy. You only are Lord. You only are most high, Jesus Christ. With the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father. So be it.

I believe in one God, Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all visible and invisible things. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten son of God, born of the Father before all ages, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father, by whom all things were made. Who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit through the virgin Mary, and was made man. He was also crucified for us: under Pontius Pilate he died and was buried. And on the third day he rose again in accordance with the scriptures. And ascended into heaven: he sits at the right hand of the Father. And he will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead: there will be no end to his kingdom. And in the Holy Spirit, Lord and giver of life: who comes from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is adored and glorified; who spoke through the prophets. And in one holy, catholic and apostolic church. I confess one baptism for the remission of sins. And I await the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

I believe in one God, Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all visible and invisible things. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten son of God, born of the Father before all ages, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father, by whom all things were made. Who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit through the virgin Mary, and was made man. He was also crucified for us: under Pontius Pilate he died and was buried. And on the third day he rose again in accordance with the scriptures. And ascended into heaven: he sits at the right hand of the Father. And he will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead: there will be no end to his kingdom. And in the Holy Spirit, Lord and giver of life: who comes from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is adored and glorified; who spoke through the prophets. And in one holy, catholic and apostolic church. I confess one baptism for the remission of sins. And I await the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. So be it.

Lamb of God, you who take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us. Lamb of God, you who take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us. Lamb of God, you who take away the sins of the world, grant us peace.